U.S. Naval officer sentenced in Afghan visa bribery scheme

Daily News Article — Posted on October 31, 2024

(by Fox News with CBS News5 Daily Caller and DOJ) – A U.S. Navy Reserve officer was sentenced to more than two years in prison on Monday for his role in a years-long bribery scheme involving Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) for Afghan citizens.

Cmdr. Jeromy Pittmann, 53, of Pensacola, Florida, accepted bribes from Afghan nationals in exchange for drafting, submitting and verifying fraudulent letters of recommendation for Afghan citizens who applied for SIVs with the State Department, which offers a limited number of SIVs to enter the U.S.

Pittmann, who served as a civil engineer corps officer who deployed to Afghanistan with NATO Special Operations Command received 2 1/2 years in prison, the Justice Department said. He originally faced 45 years in prison. Fox News Digital has reached out to the State Department and U.S. Navy Reserve for comment.

According to court documents, Pittman was sentenced after he was convicted of conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery, making a materially false writing and conspiring to commit money laundering on July 12 for drafting, submitting, and verifying letters of recommendation for Afghan nationals to obtain SIVs.

“Pittmann signed over 20 letters in which he fraudulently represented that he personally knew and had supervised the Afghan national visa applicants while they worked as translators in support of the U.S. military and NATO; that the applicants’ lives were in jeopardy because the Taliban considered them to be traitors; and that, based on his personal knowledge of the applicants, he believed they did not pose any threat to the national security of the United States,” a Department of Justice (DOJ) release said.

“In truth, Pittmann did not know the applicants and had no basis for recommending them for SIVs,” the Justice Department said. “In exchange for the fraudulent letters, Pittmann received several thousands of dollars in bribes.”

To avoid detection, Pittmann received the bribe money through an intermediary and created false invoices showing that he was receiving the funds for legitimate work unrelated to his military service, authorities said.

Robert P. Storch, an inspector with the Department of Defense, said “Pittmann deliberately chose self-enrichment over service when he violated federal law in his lengthy bribery scheme” and that he “compromised the integrity of the Afghan SIV system.”

“This case shows how someone betrayed his sacred oath of office to commit crimes for personal gain, with no regard for how his actions could threaten U.S. homeland security and harm Afghans, who risked their lives to help the United States,” said Inspector General John F. Sopko of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

“Pittmann’s participation in this bribery scheme not only jeopardized the integrity of the SIV program, which protects our allies, but also introduced significant security risks to our nation,” said Special Agent in Charge Greg Gross of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) Economic Crimes Field Office.

The Department of Homeland Security inspector general in September 2022 concluded that immigration officials failed to properly vet many of the roughly 79,000 Afghan evacuees that entered the U.S. following Present Joe Biden’s botched pullout of the country. The watchdog also found that names, birth dates, identification numbers and other travel documentation that was processed from the incoming Afghans included inaccurate [false?] or missing data.

The vetting procedures for the thousands of Afghan migrants into the U.S. was further put into question after the DOJ announced earlier in October the arrest of Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, a 27-year-old Afghan who recently entered the country and was living in Oklahoma City while allegedly planning an Election Day terrorist attack against Americans. Congressional Republicans are still investigating how Tawhedi managed to enter the U.S.

The government said Tawhedi worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a security guard in Afghanistan before entering the United States in 2021 on an SIV.

Authorities believe he became radicalized after he arrived in the U.S. Tawhedi and a juvenile co-conspirator [his brother-in-law] have been charged in connection with the plot.

Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Ranking Member Rand Paul, R-Ky., led several other Republicans in demanding answers from the Biden-Harris administration related to the plot and the admission of Afghans into the U.S. Secretary Mayorkas has yet to provide any substantial answers to Congress.

Compiled from an article by Louis Casiano at Fox News Digital, with Justice .gov, CBS local WKRG News5 and The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Background

Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans (SIV):

Wikipedia notes that to be eligible for the SIV for Afghans, applicants must be Afghan citizens who:

Provided faithful and valuable service to the US government as documented by a recommendation letter
Must be experiencing a serious and ongoing threat as a consequence of such employment

Among various documents included in their application, Afghan applicants must include:

“A recommendation letter from an American citizen who supervised the applicant directly, or if that person cannot be found, a recommendation letter from a non-US citizen counter signed by a US citizen who was overseeing the contract.”

Read: “Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans – Who Were Employed by/on Behalf of the U.S. Government” at the state department website.

Read a DOJ factsheet “Employment Information Regarding Afghan Special Immigrant Visa Holders and Parolees”

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan sent letters on October 22 to the State Department and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requesting information about the Afghan man (27-year-old Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi) with reported ties to ISIS who allegedly planned an Election Day terrorist attack in the U.S.

In the letters to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Jordan demands the following:

Case history documents and information, including, but not limited to, the alien’s immigration history, immigration benefits applications, the alien file (A-file) or consular file (including all consular notes), and immigration detention status and history.
Documents sufficient to show the time, date, and place of any and all of the alien’s entries into the United States.
Documents sufficient to show the alien’s processing by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials, including whether CBP officials were alerted to derogatory information about the alien and what questions were asked of the alien during the screening process.
A briefing regarding the immigration issues, including processes and procedures, concerning this case.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced earlier in October that the FBI arrested Tawhedi, who was living in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He was charged with conspiring and attempting to support ISIS with violent acts scheduled for the upcoming U.S. elections in November.

The U.S. brought in more than 97,000 Afghan evacuees during the evacuation in 2021, of which about 77,000 were admitted via humanitarian parole through a program called Operation Allies Welcome. [Thousands/tens of thousands? of other Afghans were admitted through the SIV program.]

But the new case of Tawhedi has renewed concerns about vetting in the program, which has been identified for years by the DHS internal watchdog and by Republicans in Congress. In 2022, the DHS Office of Inspector General released a report in which it said it found that officials "did not always have critical data to properly screen, vet, or inspect the evacuees.

"As a result, DHS may have admitted or paroled individuals into the United States who pose a risk to national security and the safety of local communities," the report said. (from an Oct. 10 Fox News report)